


Whitest Whites

by Kavi Leighanna (kleighanna)



Series: beauty, grace, punches in the face [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M, Tumblr Prompt, quasi-romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-09
Updated: 2016-05-09
Packaged: 2018-06-07 07:02:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6792304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kleighanna/pseuds/Kavi%20Leighanna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's the smell of detergent, not dry-cleaning chemicals, that sets her off.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Whitest Whites

It starts with a t-shirt. 

Her favourite cotton Marine shirt, the one that she slips into when she’s had a long day and just wants to be comfortable. Maria’s used to her things smelling a little bit like chemicals. It’s what happens when she’s too damn busy to do her own laundry.

Except when she slides the shirt over her head, she doesn’t smell any chemicals at all. It smells warm, like a detergent she’s smelled before but can’t, for the life of her, remember where it may have come from. She holds the cotton up to her nose again, a little suspiciously before she heads out to the living room. 

Steve’s humming to the stereo as he pulls the cartons from the plastic bag - Indian tonight, she’d wanted curry - but he glances up at her. Then glances up again. 

“You’re not wearing pants.” 

“Did you do my laundry?” 

He blinks at her for a moment, then another one. “Not the dry cleaning stuff. You’re not wearing pants.”

“You did my laundry.”

“Dry cleaning’s expensive. And not everything needs to go.” He eyes the t-shirt. “Cotton, for example.” 

“My laundry.”

“Not your delicates,” he answers and goes back to unloading the food. “I was doing mine anyway. Are you putting pants on?”

Maria rolls her eyes. It’s her house, she can wander half naked if she wants to and it’s not like Steve hasn’t seen it all before. Still, she pops back into her room, grabs a pair of sweats. She pauses with them unfolded and holds them up to her nose. Detergent, maybe softener. (She knows how to do her own laundry, thanks, she just… doesn’t).

“It’s easier to send it out,” she calls. 

“More expensive.”

She blows out an exasperated breath as she steps back into the living room. 

He looks up at her, completely calm. “Did you want me to stop?” 

She pauses, thinks. He has a habit of making her do that on things she wouldn’t have necessarily considered before. Because when it comes down to it, she doesn’t care about who does her laundry she just wants clean clothes. She cocks her head to the side. “You cook, you clean, you do laundry, you bring food. Are you sure you’ve never dreamed of being a house husband?”

His eyes gleam for a moment, and it’s too late for her to take it back. There’s a look of feral want on his face, gone in the next blink, and Maria swallows. “For the right person, I’d think about it.” 

He wouldn’t. They both know it. But they also both know the right person wouldn’t even ask it of him. 

The same way the right person wouldn’t ask it of her. 

“Sure,” she finally says. “Do my laundry.” 

He grins and offers her a carton. “My pleasure, Lieutenant.” 


End file.
